“Well, the faintin’ saved Tillie a row with him till he got her home oncet a’ready,” the doctor said, as he puffed away at his pipe, his hands in his vest arms, his feet on the table, and a newspaper under them to spare the chenille table-cover.

“Yes.  Otherwise I don’t know how I could have borne to see her taken home by that ruffian—­to be punished for so heroically defending me!”

“You bet!  That took cheek, ain’t?—­fur that little girl to stand there and jaw Jake Getz—­and make him quit lickin’ you!  By gum, that minds me of sceneries I’ve saw a’ready in the theayter!  They most gener’ly faints away in a swoond that way, too.  Well, Tillie she come round all right, ain’t?—­till a little while?”

“Yes.  But she was very pale and weak, poor child!” Fairchilds answered, resting his head wearily upon his palm.  “When she became conscious, Getz carried her out of the woods to his buggy that he had left near the school-house.”

“How did Absalom take it, anyhow?”

“He’s rather dazed, I think!  He doesn’t quite know how to make it all out.  He is a man of one idea—­one at a time and far apart.  His idea at present is that he is going to marry Tillie.”

“Yes, and I never seen a Puntz yet where didn’t come by what he set his stubborn head to!” the doctor commented.  “It wonders me sometimes, how Tillie’s goin’ to keep from marryin’ him, now he’s made up his mind so firm!”

“Tillie knows her own worth too well to throw herself away like that.”

“Well, now I don’t know,” said the doctor, doubtfully.  “To be sure, I never liked them Puntzes, they’re so damned thick-headed.  Dummness runs in that family so, it’s somepin’ surprisin’!  Dummness and stubbornness is all they got to ’em.  But Absalom he’s so well fixed—­Tillie she might go furder and do worse.  Now there’s you, Teacher.  If she took up with you and yous two got married, you’d have to rent.  Absalom he’d own his own farm.”

“Now, come, Doc,” protested Fairchilds, disgusted, “you know better—­you know that to almost any sort of a woman marriage means something more than getting herself ‘well fixed,’ as you put it.  And to a woman like Tillie!”

“Yes—­yes—­I guess,” answered the doctor, pulling briskly at his pipe.  “It’s the same with a male—­he mostly looks to somepin besides a good housekeeper.  There’s me, now—­I’d have took Miss Margaret—­and she couldn’t work nothin’.  I tole her I don’t mind if my wife is smart, so she don’t bother me any.”

“You did, did you?” smiled Fairchilds.  “And what did the lady say to that?”

“Och, she was sorry!”

“Sorry to turn you down, do you mean?”

“It was because I didn’t speak soon enough,” the doctor assured him.  “She was promised a’ready to one of these here tony perfessers at the Normal.  She was sorry I hadn’t spoke sooner.  To be sure, after she had gave her word, she had to stick to it.”  He thoughtfully knocked the ashes from his pipe, while his eyes grew almost tender.  “She was certainly, now, an allurin’ female!